14 July 2019 - who then is my neighbor

Today's Readings

(Audio)

For this command that I enjoin on you today
is not too mysterious and remote for you.

Our trouble with the commandments is not that they enjoin on us anything so complex or difficult that we would have to travel the world to figure them out. The problem is rather with ourselves. We see what the commandments ask and cross the road to the other side.

A priest happened to be going down that road,
but when he saw him, he passed by on the opposite side.
Likewise a Levite came to the place,
and when he saw him, he passed by on the opposite side.

We know we are supposed to love the Lord, our God, with all our heart, with all our being, with all our strength, and with all our mind, and our neighbor as ourselves. But when it comes time to do it we at least occasionally choose to avoid it. We imagine ourselves busy with priestly business. We sanctify our choice with all sorts of religious sentiment. Our reasons for refusal are complex and myriad. But the reasons to follow the commandments are simply and straightforward.

But a Samaritan traveler who came upon him
was moved with compassion at the sight.

Straightforward is easy to figure out but it can be a challenge to do, especially if entails such sacrifices as are made by the good Samaritan. Yet the Samaritan himself is a figure of the mercy Jesus himself has shown to us. Jesus in turn gives us the power to show that mercy to others. He gives us the oil of the anointing of the Holy Spirit, and the wine of his own precious blood. In baptism and reconciliation he cleanses and bandages our wounds. He carries us and indeed the whole world on his own back in the form of the cross. He himself pays the cost of our care and our recovery in the inn of his Church. We are not only strengthened by this example but we are empowered by the same Spirit. We know that we out to act with mercy. We have the grace to do it.

Jesus said to him, "Go and do likewise."

The word is near us, already in our mouths, and in our hearts. We have only to carry it out. This is because all things are created through and for Christ Jesus himself. There is nothing which is excluded from his preeminence and therefore nothing exempt from the need to share in his reconciliation. He is so near precisely because everything that exists does so precisely so that Jesus might be its LORD. If we listen, we can hear the very creation proclaiming the glory of God.

the ordinances of the LORD are true,
 all of them just.
They are more precious than gold,
 than a heap of purest gold;
sweeter also than syrup
 or honey from the comb.